Even as he came to Dale, who really didn't look human at all at this point, just a contorting mess of shifting flesh, there was a unique sensation as he reached out to scoop him up. Well perhaps not unique, but something he'd not really felt in a good while, fear. A primal part told him he should just bolt, but that wasn't what he was going to do. He grabbed ahold of what was normally Dale, and ran. Before the devices couldn't effect him, but now, it seemed like they were powered up, and they could, though the effect wasn't driving him to hysteria like the others. It made him uncomfortable, almost as uncomfortable as holding onto Dale like this was making him.
While that tiny twinge of fear was present, he scowled as he dashed back out to where he'd brought Curtis. Now he was pissed off, and he was already planning what he was going to do to bring the Fear-Master down.

Tat's latest text showed she was looking forward to the party, so Rick smiled even as he continued heading for her Mansion. .Rick had gone with something that was fairly mundane, but still it was a costume party, so he had to dress up as someone. If someone knew him well, and everything he could do, then they'd agree it was pretty damn fitting, so he just shrugged. Perhaps it would be showing his inner nerd abit, but he didn't care. This was going to be a fun night. He made his way to the mansion that was Tatiana's home, He avoided moving at his top speed. He didn't expect anyone to recognize him, but it didn't matter. As he finally arrived, he headed up to the door, having landed lightly on the ground with the practiced ease of years of training. His Dark hair was spiked with gel, standing mostly straight up and back, with a forelock angled to the left and down. He wore black laceless boots though there was a cord around them just above the ankle. tucked into them was the bright orange keikogi over a dark blue tee-shirt that fans of a particular anime would recognize all to well. The armbands on his wrists were the same dark blue as his shirt, and unlike the show his clothes weren't weighted down. It was the first time he wore something that actually hinted at how fit he was, though the guys already knew this thanks to lots of basketball games.
He saw Tatiana and Sebastian there at the door, looked like the farmboy had just gotten there ahead of him. He called out to them. "Hope the fun hasn't started yet." This got them both to turn around, and He had to chuckle at Bastion's costume. " Solomon Grundy, born on a Monday.." He smiled at his two friends, and looked at the "different" take on Alice in Wonderland's Mad Hatter. "You look great too Tat, I don't think I've seen that character done quite like that." it was true, Rick wasn't big on horror movies, and he tended to avoid films like the Saw series and such. His mother had been pretty honest about how shitty people could be, and that some of the worst monsters he could ever face could be other people. Still Even with that, he could see Tat had put some real work in with her costume, and surmised it was probably to impress someone. That said she was the host, and the host of a party had to look good to set the mood for the party.

"So this just went from "annoying" to "Pretty Damn Bad." Curtis, stay here, study the signal he's using and if possible try to find some sort of counter to it. You're smarter than everyone, so I know you can do it. I'm gonna go find Dale if I can, and get him out before this does any lasting damage to him."
With those words he took off again, Not moving top speed, but more than fast enough to cover a huge amount of ground in moments. He was able to find Dale, but he wasn't able to quite reach him through the throng of people and get out. The people were in a frenetic panic, and he was concerned with everyone's mental health with what he was seeing. This was getting worse and worse. He hoped Curtis could come up with a real idea, because something told him that hitting him with a barrage of attacks again wasn't likely going to work so well this time.

"It's localized, in that All I had to do was bring you out of the area and you're back to normal, so I think we can eliminate a chemical transmitter. Also unless it was an aerosol, I can't think of a way to dose everyone like that chemically, as we weren't all previously in the same place. If i had to guess, we were very near the epicenter. I knocked out some idiot calling himself the "Fear-Master" and left him tied up on the roof where I found him. I thought he might have been the source but obviously I was wrong. The effect doesn't seem to be moving either."

"And stay down."
Rick looked around for something to bind him with and seeing nothing, he stripped off the guy's ratty shirt, twisted it up and damn near hog-tied him with it. It was far from perfect, but given his speed the whole process too only moments. It might hold, but he didn't have alot of time. From there, he looked down, noticing the panic hadn't stopped, He knew there had to be another source. He did know Curtis had electrical abilities, from a previous discussion, so he might have a faster way than just running around searching for a transmitter.
Just as he was about to head back to his friend, he noticed that the whole disturbance was fairly localized, and there did seem to be a sort of boundary to it. Seeing a potential way to get help without calling in others, He dashed back down the wall and scooped up Curtis, likely too fast for his friend to realize what happened. Quickly he brought Curtis outside the boundary of the effect, and hoped that was enough to end the effect. "Come on man, wake up, I need a genius, not a catatonic mess." He avoided the standard of hitting him like people in movies did, it wasn't going to help, he had more faith in that outside the effect, Curtis was strong enough to get ahold of himself.

"Aww Hell." Seeing literally everyone around him panic at the same time as the so-called Fear-Master enveloped the area in what he surmised was a massive fear-inducing effect, Richard took a fraction of a second to decide what he needed to do. Without access to some means to bind so many people at once, he had to go after the source, This Fear-Master. "You're gonna pay for ruining my night off, asshole." While he didn't move at his full speed, going straight supersonic was always a bad idea in town, he moved as fast as he could get away with, right up to the wall of the building Fear-Master was atop and began running up the wall, a seeming dark-blue streak thanks to the predominance of Navy and denim in his attire. Still he was on guard should this foe have any allies, or another ability he'd not seen.
He silently was quite thankful that there weren't cars to worry about, at least not right in the vicinity, he could only imagine the carnage that would have wrought upon all the innocent bystanders. "Small favors." he spoke softly, his own battleplan already forming in his mind. Easily closing the distance, he dashed up and over the top, and let go a powerful barrage of fists at the villain.

Rick saw the texts and was perplexed, but hearing Curtis, he caught up quickly. "Dammit Dale." He didn't know the answer to the question, but he knew Bastion wouldn't have even had to guess. "You don't sound that sure. Having lived on a farm, I'd expect you to know that like Curtis knows programming, if you were actually Sebastian. So what did you do to piss the astoviks off, so I'll echo the question. What did you do to the astoviks that pissed them off so much that you were willing to irritate the three of us to escape from it?"
He was already thinking of a way to make this up to the real Sebastian, but that was going to be something for later it seemed.

Rick chuckled and inwardly sighed. It was probably best that someone like Bastion did consider something like that getting her back, as it could be so much worse, and escalate quickly. "Alright so let's get some food, then go catch a movie. Might be abit boring compared to the girls' night, but who knows what will happen in this city..."

Rick nodded "Not very many do, man. I can only hope they find people one day who treat them the same as they treat everyone else." He shrugged as if to let their laughter and words do nothing. "Alright man we can go hit up somewhere for food, but there has to be something more fun to do in this city, that won't get us in the office again being threatened to be booted from the academy." He looked to Curtis. "We can figure something out as we eat i guess."

"Nah Curtis, she'd go after after Sebastian if anyone, simply because she doesn't seem the type to want a man who'll talk back." He chuckled and he went to grab a towel for each of them. "Clean up first, then go for food? No point in actually going out smelling like this I should think."

Rick chuckled "You know it's often said then when you stop looking, you find what you never knew you were missing Curtis." he recovered the ball quickly, and made his own drive on the goal, putting it in with an easy layup. "I get it in a way Curtis, that you just don't really seem to care. That doesn't mean they don't. You're so intelligent, but you can't ignore that aspect of life too. See, i find them all interesting, though as pretty as Cosima is, she's the lowest on my list. Even if her whole attitude is just an act, I can't see myself with her. I mean when it's just all of us together, there's no need for all that, in my opinion."
He shrugged it off and smiled. "Besides, if it's not all an act, I could never afford to match any gift she could simply give herself on any given day." He looked to Sebastian and chuckled "Though I bet you could make her some pretty amazing diamonds by compressing coal, if you wanted to go that route." He did have interest in Qi, but it was more that he wanted to know more about her in general.

"I don't imagine the Dean will be too worried, but sure call so he can order us to come home right away." Rick said almost teasingly. Rick was impressed, having never been somewhere like this. At most his mother kept a dojo to do his training and hers. He smiled and busied himself with looking around, still somewhat inwardly shaken at his inability to do anything of relevance in the previous battle.

Rick had been ready to go after them, but Taking care of the unconscious heroes was a more pressing matter. "Well, that went better than expected." He was annoyed at his own perceived inadequacies, and knew he still needed alot more training to really be ready for this sort of thing. His mood was souring, as he thought of how relatively useless he'd been.

Seeing his chance, and thankful that the others were on top of their own games, he moved to engage Larrup once again. seeing that she was already feeling the ill effects of his comrade's attentions, if they could take her out of the game here and now, it would allow them all to focus on the others. He did know he wasn't as fast as her, but her injury should make up the difference, he hoped. He vanished in an eyeblink, moving almost the exact same as he had before, but just before he lashed out with his clenched fists, he shifted gears to his Power Gear, and while it cut his speed, the jump in strength rocketed his fist forward with meteoric power.
Larrup was on the ropes. She had somehow become everyone's favorite and under the circumstances she didn't enjoy the attention one bit. She was nursing injuries that her metabolism was swiftly working on repairing... just not swiftly enough. Clutching her side from where Princess had attempted to crush her, she never saw Richard coming. The hole scene played out like the final blow of a Street Fighter match, her scream was loud, but the actual impact seam to land in a very high speed slow motion. They saw Richard move, the blow connect, and after that she just seemed to spiral slowly through the air before landing with a bounce near Sumnyr.
She slowly pulled herself back up to her feet, a menacing look in her eyes.